Page 16 of Once Upon a Dark October
Chapter Sixteen
T hough she’d accepted my apology with an assurance that everything was all right between us, it wasn’t until the following day that Morrigan was able to coax Gwen into getting excited about ballgown fabrics. Early that morning, we had managed to get Josephine out of her laboratory to join us, but only because Clarabella insisted. Morrigan had scheduled appointments with the coven’s usual dressmaker and tailor before all of the harbor awoke and rushed the shops. We were allowed to browse at our own leisure, the doors locked and the curtains closed to other customers who might have been roused with the veil of predawn fog.
The young dressmaker and her seamstresses were bleary-eyed with sore fingers, having been overwhelmed with orders from all across the harbor since Sonia’s invitations arrived. I saw Morrigan slip an extra handful of gold coin to her while Gwen and Jo were being indecisive about color palettes. She had approached me wearing a smirk as I considered endless bolts of iridescent silks and solid, velvety colors. It was customary to wear autumn shades to a Blood Moon celebration, but it had been a few years since I’d worn a formal evening gown .
“What do you think, darling?” She’d skirted the raw edge of a burnt orange satin, making it billow. “Silk or satin?”
I had hummed, pondering the abundance of choices. “I think we should match colors, you and I.”
“Blood red, for the occasion?”
“That seems too obvious.”
Morrigan had laughed.
After a brief appointment with her tailor—where she wouldn’t let me see the fabrics she’d chosen—we returned to the cliffside. Josephine and Morrigan disappeared into the tower to combine their skills on the matter of my concealment. We saw each other for perhaps fifteen minutes before she was off again to make a rare journey into town on some errand. Perhaps an audience with the High Council to discuss safety of the harbor’s dhampir residents amid Sonia’s threats to our coven.
Whatever it was, she wouldn’t let me accompany her.
Which left me mostly on my own among the estate’s warm corridors and parlor rooms, away from the autumn’s blustery cold.
I had gotten used to my new home—its creaks and groans, its coiling staircases and massive stained glass windows. I’d even found my favorite of its rooms aside from the library tower, a cozy afterthought tucked against the side of the estate, forgotten beyond a set of frosted stained glass doors.
Dramatic and ocean-swept, the walls and high, curved ceiling were formed entirely of glass, as if it was once meant to be a solarium. Yet it was smaller, more intimate, a collection of plush ocean-green velvet furniture and upholstered benches that spanned its perimeter, blankets folded on seats, untouched. A few candles were left behind, burned down to the quick under grey dust. Books lined the shelves beneath the window-benches, some haphazardly kept, the titles on their spines winking faintly in the overcast afternoon light.
Sea-spray rolled down the ceiling’s glass panes, the view from atop the cliffside a breathtaking affair. Fog shivered against the windows, a ghostly, lingering exhale. The sounds of the sea thrashing, the mist forever glittering on the panes, had become a familiar comfort.
The heat of my hand left a foggy, smudged print on the glass. I longed to sleep here on a clear night, the sky dusted with so many stars neither Morrigan nor I could count them all. I wanted her here in the secluded intimacy of this place. The thought of it sent a thrill through me—being so exposed yet safe, with none but the sea to watch the two of us. A sanctuary of ocean mist and fog and starlight.
That brief ember of desire had nowhere to go, and it was quickly extinguished with a hard, crackling thump from somewhere above. The impact jolted a gasp from my throat. My breath left a blurred, opaque circle on the mist-streaked windowpane.
It had sounded as if a large tree branch had hit the roof somewhere—but that couldn’t be.
I hurried out of the room, rounding corner after corner down the hallways. Another collision. This time louder, more percussive, like those sparkling fireworks the children set off during festivals along the waterfront. I quickened my pace, boots thudding across the floors.
Had something happened to Clarabella? To Josephine? Had Sonia’s coven launched an attack on us with Morrigan away? My mind tripped over each possibility, the next worse than the one before it. Visions of my poor cousin’s alchemy lab incident filled me with unbearable panic.
The heels of my boots skidded as I rushed to a halt near the staircase. Trails of light, acrid smoke wafted downward from above. Gwen was walking briskly with a large teacup and saucer cradled in her hands, her hair flyaway, her feet bare. I’d smelled something burning, but it had a strong odor, an unnatural scent unlike charred wood .
“What’s happening?”
“Jo’s been up there for hours.” Gwen huffed out a sigh. “From the sound of it, the work’s got her frustrated. It won’t do her any good to starve.”
“I didn’t think a concealment serum would become this volatile.”
“This sounds like something different to me,” she replied. “She’s been testing defensive alchemy tricks for a while now—might’ve had a breakthrough.”
I blanched. “Or worse.”
An impact crackled above our heads while we climbed the narrow spiral. This one came with a shudder, the estate threatening to shake its roof tiles loose. I gripped the banister and watched a few crimson droplets slip over the side of Gwen’s teacup. Dust rained down from the ceiling. I could hear the strains of Josephine’s frustrations, her heavy footfalls, the quick stream-of-consciousness aloud, her alchemist’s mind in constant motion.
“Josephine!” Gwen yelled as I shouted, “Jo?”
The next explosive collision brought the echo of shattered glass in its wake. Without another word between us, we dashed up the rest of the staircase to the tower’s solitary reach. Gwen crashed through the unlocked door, shoulder-first. More bright red stained the delicate porcelain saucer, a few drops collecting in the threshold.
Josephine appeared unhurt, flailing her arms in an attempt to dispel the smoke. Through the curling light grey plumes, I saw new scorch marks all over the rug, pockmarked with soot. Half the curtains had burned away, a few books were still puffing out embers, and there was a hole in one of the tables. Stone had chipped and fragmented, piles of rubble littering stone-dust about. The sitting room remained unharmed, where Clarabella looked on from an armchair.
Gwen set the teacup beside an open journal. “A warning would be helpful next time, if you would, Jo. We thought the house might be coming down around us or you’d tossed half the tower into the sea.”
“What are you doing?” I asked.
Josephine lifted the hem of her skirt, frowning at the inches that had been eaten by fire. “I call them sunbursts.” She tossed a glowing pumpkin seed around her curled palm. The light peeking out from between her fingers looked as if she’d captured the rays of the sun from behind the clouds. “Except I need them to burn like daylight, not explode.”
“This is brilliant,” I said.
“Not if it doesn’t work how it’s supposed to.”
“How did you manage it?” Gwen picked up one of the seeds, pinching it between her thumb and forefinger to inspect its sunny glow with a narrow-eyed stare. I studied one of them myself, surprised by the heat radiating from its glossy shell. “Explosions might be helpful as well, you know.”
“An alchemical mixture I’ve been working on to mimic what I’ve got in my veins. It’s supposed to expel pure sunlight once it hits something, but it’s still too unstable.”
My interest had been piqued by what Josephine had said— what I’ve got in my veins —but I didn’t get the chance to ask what that entailed. I’d wondered about her power, something Morrigan had once described as blurring the lines between the disciplines of alchemy and sorcery.
Josephine groaned. “And it feels like we’re always running out of time.”
“Strange, isn’t it?” Gwen agreed. “Time’s still a ticking bastard of a thing, even to us immortals.”
Josephine threw a glance at Clarabella. “No need to remind me.”
“We can’t halt time, either. Though that would be a useful trick, wouldn’t it? Perhaps a walk will help,” Gwen suggested. “Fresh sea air, bracing autumn wind. The sound of the waves. The sand beneath your feet. It always makes things clearer, helps me find the answers.”
“You really should take a break,” I said. “The work will still be here when you return.”
She hadn’t torn her attention from her wife. “I can’t leave again, not so soon.”
Clarabella slipped from the armchair, taking graceful strides across the bedraggled carpet of pumpkin seeds and smoky ash. She did not walk but rather glided, waltz-like, her dress of starlight floating out in her awake. Gwen and I quaked with a chill when she drew near.
I’ll be right here when you get back , she assured, using the thought-speak I’d become familiar with after the coven’s midnight curse descended. Go, my love. You need some time away. Give that clever mind of yours a rest. Tell the sea I send my love, too.
She touched her ghostly fingers to the gold dahlia pendant on Josephine’s necklace, then slipped them beneath it to the hollow below her throat. I wondered what it felt like, spectral fingers breezing over your skin, I touch that wasn’t quite there, filled with cold and distance. But I couldn’t fathom being haunted by love in a way that ached with such longing. Unrequited touches, kisses, words trapped between a veil.
Clarabella kissed her fingers and held them out to Josephine, who returned the phantom gesture.
“I won’t be gone long,” she said.
An immortal promise bestowed with a kiss seemed as sacred as a vow.